When I think back on my journey as a growth marketer, one thing has always been clear: growth doesn’t happen by accident. It requires intent, strategy, and, most importantly, a willingness to adapt and evolve constantly. SEO is a prime example of this mindset.
Mastering SEO isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s a cornerstone of growth that can propel businesses forward or leave them lagging behind. Over the past two decades, I’ve had the opportunity to work with startups that were just finding their feet, as well as businesses scaling into the stratosphere.
From venture-backed B2B SaaS companies to early-stage D2C brands, one thing remains constant—SEO is a growth lever that, when appropriately optimized, delivers consistent, repeatable results. In this article, I’ll break down the key strategies I use to elevate website rankings and drive growth.
Focus on High-Quality Content Creation
SEO starts and ends with content. It’s the heartbeat of your strategy, and without it, everything else falls flat.
Google processes over 99,000 searches every second globally, and what are people searching for? Whether it’s educational articles, product information, or entertainment, content is the currency that drives visibility.
Creating content that resonates requires a deep understanding of your audience. It’s not about writing for search engines; it’s about writing for people. We’ve always operated under the belief that if you focus on delivering value to the consumer, Google will reward you for it. The key here is to create content that solves real problems, answers burning questions and does so in an engaging way.
This is where understanding search intent comes into play. Is the user looking for quick information (informational intent), willing to make a purchase (transactional intent), or comparing options (navigational intent)? Aligning your content with the user’s intent ensures that your content ranks and converts. In practice, I always advise businesses to conduct deep-dive keyword research, looking beyond the obvious terms.
There are long-tail keywords with high conversion potential that can help you connect with niche audiences. Tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush can be incredibly useful in uncovering these opportunities. Whether you’re a company handling SEO internally or working with an SEO agency, uncovering these opportunities is necessary for staying ahead of competitors.
Implement Effective On-Page SEO Techniques
On-page SEO is where the technical meets the creative. It’s the science of making your content as accessible and understandable as possible to search engines while still appealing to human readers.
You can have the best content in the world, but if you don’t structure it properly, it’s like trying to broadcast a message with a broken antenna. When optimizing for on-page SEO, I like to focus on a few critical elements:
- Meta tags (title and description) serve as your first introduction to search engines and users. Make them concise but compelling, incorporating primary keywords without sounding robotic.
- Headings and subheadings: Structuring your content with H1, H2, and H3 tags helps with readability and signals the significance of your content to search engines.
- Internal linking: Creating a web of interconnected content helps search engines crawl your site better. More importantly, it encourages users to stay on your site longer, which can reduce bounce rates—a key ranking factor.
- Mobile optimization: With over 60% of searches now coming from mobile devices, ensuring your site is mobile-friendly is non-negotiable. Google’s mobile-first indexing means that your rankings will take a hit if your mobile experience is subpar.
Leverage Technical SEO to Improve Site Performance
Technical SEO is the starting point on which everything else is built. It’s the behind-the-scenes work that ensures your website is fast, crawlable, and free from any errors that could hurt your rankings.
You can think of technical SEO as the infrastructure of a building: without a solid base, everything else crumbles. Site speed is often overlooked, but it’s necessary.
Google has been very clear about the importance of page load times. Pages that load in under 2 seconds have been shown to have a 15% higher conversion rate compared to slower sites.
I’ve seen this firsthand—when we’ve optimized clients’ site speed at AGA, not only did we see rankings improve, but conversion rates shot up as well. A few of the technical SEO elements I focus on include:
- Core Web Vitals: Metrics that Google uses to measure your website’s user experience. It looks at loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability. Optimizing for these metrics can have a significant impact on both your rankings and user satisfaction.
- Crawlability and indexation: It’s essential that search engines can crawl and index your site’s pages. A clean site architecture, coupled with an optimized sitemap and robots.txt file, ensures that search engines can easily access your most important content.
- HTTPS: Security is a ranking factor, and Google now flags non-HTTPS sites as “not secure.” This can scare off visitors and lead to higher bounce rates, which can hurt your SEO.
Build a Strong Backlink Profile
When I think about backlinks, I’m reminded how much the SEO landscape has evolved. Back in the day, link-building was all about quantity. Today, it’s about quality. A strong backlink profile signals to Google that your site is trustworthy and authoritative. However, not all links are created equal.
A single backlink from an authoritative site like Forbes or The New York Times can be more effective than hundreds of low-quality links from random blogs. One of the most effective ways to build backlinks is through thought leadership and guest posting.
Share valuable insights and contribute to conversations within your industry, and people will naturally link back to your content. Another powerful strategy is broken link building—finding broken links on high-authority websites and offering your content as a replacement.
Keep in mind, though, that not all backlinks are good backlinks. Toxic backlinks from spammy sites can hurt your rankings. Regularly auditing your backlink profile using tools like Ahrefs or Moz will help you identify and disavow these harmful links.
Continuous Monitoring and Optimization
SEO is not a set-it-and-forget-it strategy. It’s a dynamic field where things change quickly—new algorithm updates, shifting search behaviors, and evolving best practices mean you always need to be on your toes.
We’ve always championed the idea of rapid experimentation. Every strategy needs to be tested, measured, and refined. Google Analytics and Google Search Console and tools like these are invaluable for monitoring how your SEO efforts are performing.
These platforms give you insights into which pages are ranking, which keywords are driving traffic, and where there are opportunities for improvement. SEO is a long-term game, and we’ve seen businesses experience dramatic growth simply by refining existing content.
Something as small as updating an outdated post or reworking a meta description can lead to noticeable gains in traffic. With consistent monitoring and optimization, you can stay ahead of the competition.
Conclusion
SEO is a journey. It’s not about quick wins or overnight success—it’s about building a start that will continue to drive growth over time. SEO is one of the most powerful tools in a growth marketer’s arsenal when done right.
It’s how you increase visibility, attract the right audience, and, most importantly, drive real, sustainable growth. At the heart of every successful SEO strategy is the need for a growth mindset- willingness to experiment, adapt, and never stop learning.
This is the mindset I’ve built my career on, and it’s what continues to drive me—and the companies I work with—forward. If you can adopt this mindset and approach SEO with both a creative and analytical lens, you’ll be well on your way to mastering the art of elevating website rankings and driving long-term success.